God Encounters / Leaving Water Pots

The last few  posts we have been dealing with Jesus and His encounter with the woman at the well.  What we saw was that Jesus went through Samaria because He had a divine appointment with the woman at the well.  Jesus was reaching out to this woman who was an outcast in a whole region of outcast.  Jesus was willing to defile himself so that he could reach out to this woman.  Jesus encountered her with the truth in live and then shared with her that she needed to worship in spirit and in truth.  If you do not know the story click here and read it.

We ended with Jesus revealing to the woman that He was the Messiah and the woman at this point comes to realize that Jesus is the Messiah. What happens then is we see that when God encounters happen, things that were important then seem insignificant. She was so excited when she realizes who Jesus was that she left the water pot! She was so excited that she went and began telling others about Christ! What happened to her? She got transformed and when that happened she got a whole new perspective on life. All the sudden getting water was the last thing on the list when there were lots of other people who needed to hear what Christ had to say and be transformed by Him. Let me ask you – are the things that you think are important in life – are they really important? The things that you argue and fuss and fight over – the things that frustrate you and make you mad – are they really important things or are they water pots that need to be left so that you can tell others about Jesus? Please leave the water pots behind and tell others about Him!

That then leads to this: God encounters cause people to have to share who Jesus is and what he does for them . Christ encountered her and she could not contain herself. She left the water pots and told the others to come and see! It was not a choice for her – I see that she was so excited about Christ that it just poured out of her. She wanted others to know the joy and the excitement of finding Christ! Have you been a believer in Jesus so long that you lost the excitement and the joy? Has it become more about you getting water for yourself than is about bring others and telling others about the living water? Have you lost the joy of seeing others come to Christ and your focus is now on insignificant things? Have you found the living water and have you allowed Him to change you from the inside out? I pray that you have!

What we see is this woman is a real woman. She cares enough about others at this point that she is willing to go and tell them about Jesus. She cares enough about others that she trying to get everyone she can to come with her to meet Jesus! What we see is that the Bible tells us that many believed because of her testimony – her changed life and her telling them about Christ. After that they believed not because of her but because they then met Jesus face to face! What we see in all of this is: when God encounters one person it can lead to many having God encounters and having their lives transformed. When was the last time you saw someone transformed by the power Christ? When was the last time you told anyone about Jesus and His powerful and amazing love? It is our job to be like this woman – the woman at the well.

What are your thoughts on this?  Do you have any water pots that need left behind?  Are you excited about the things of Christ?

God Encounters / True Worship

The last  post we began to  will deal with Jesus and His encounter with the woman at the well.  What we saw was that Jesus went through Samaria because He had a divine appointment with the woman at the well.  Jesus was reaching out to this woman who was an outcast in a whole region of outcast.  Jesus was willing to defile himself so that he could reach out to this woman.  If you do not know the story click here and read it.

Let me pick up from the last post and ask: why was this woman considered an outcast among outcasts? Why would she have to come in the heat of the day to get water? It comes down to her sin which Jesus addresses – she has had five husbands and is now living with a man who is not her husband. What we understand from this is she has been engaged in a series of illicit relationships, and she was not married to her current lover. Sexual relations outside of marriage are forbidden in both Testaments and by the way this has not changed and Jesus addresses this issue with this woman.

In Jesus addressing this we see that in God encounters, God tells the truth in love (17–18). What happens when Jesus tells her the truth in love? She does not react defensively and it is very significant that she does not react defensively to Jesus’ knowledge of her broken relationships. After Jesus confronts these relationships she then calls Jesus a prophet which affirms Jesus. What the woman does is focuses on who Jesus is because of what He says to her and does not get defensive. So her attention remains on Jesus’ person even though her sinful life is being confronted by Jesus. This focus on Jesus is a key characteristic of true faith. When you are confronted about your sin – how do you react? Do you immediately point out the sin of the other person or look to Jesus? She looked to Jesus and realized her sinfulness.

I believe this all happened because Jesus encountered her with the truth in a loving way and he did not judge her because of her past – he just pointed it out in a loving way that what she was engaged in was wrong. Do you treat people with love? Do you tell people the truth in love? Consider for a moment this quote by Warren Wiersbe – “Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy.” Are you brutal with people? Are practicing hypocrisy? Let us all tell the truth but do it in love as we are told in to Ephesians 4:15.

Something else that we see in this story with this woman is that God encounters bring about true worship (23). First thing we need to realize is that in verse 20 the woman is asking where should she worship, in Jerusalem which is where the Jews worship or on Mount Gerizim which is where the Samaritans made their offerings. Jesus reveals to the woman that where a person worships is unimportant. It is not limited to a place but we should worship in spirit and in truth. Jesus is letting her know that the worship of the Father is not confined to a place but is an action of heart. Jesus also is letting her know that all worship must be in keeping with the truth of God’s revealed Word. Jesus tells her and tells us that God is spirit and those who worship him must worship Him in spirit and truth. You cannot worship in any other way.

To worship in spirit means you are concerned with the spiritual realities, not outward sacrifices, cleansings and how beautiful things look or what is done around you but what is happening inside. It is not about what is on the outside but what is going on in the inside – the Pharisees looked great on the outside but were filthy on the inside according to Jesus. Are you a Pharisee when it comes to worship? To worship in truth means you worship according to the whole council of God’s word, especially in light of the New Testament revelation of Jesus. We worship in the truth of what Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross. Let me ask you – are you worshipping in the spirit and in truth that God says to or are you worshiping what you want to think is right? We must worship the way God says not what our preferences are!

What do you believe that it means to worship in spirit and in truth?  How are you at telling the truth in love?

God Encounters / Divine Appointment

This set of post on God Encounters will deal with Jesus and His encounter with the woman at the well.  It is a powerful story and to be honest – this time through it God showed me things that I had not noticed in the past.   Jesus encountered this woman and her life changed but it was much more than that!If you do not know the story click here and read it.

Now that you have read it let me ask you this – did you notice that verse 4 says that Jesus had to pass through Samaria? There were other ways around but John writes that Jesus had to go this way – why? It is because God encounters are many times divine appointments and Jesus will always keep divine appointments. Why must Jesus go through Samaria? Because there were people there who needed to hear Him.

Do believe in divine appointments? Do you seek divine appointments? God, I believe has divine appointments set up for each of us to talk with people on His behalf. Here is the problem we ignore them, do not keep in close enough proximity to Christ to know realize what they are or we shun or avoid people that God brings to us. That is the same mentality that the Jews had with the Samaritans and it is wrong – be looking for divine appoints!

To understand this even more you need to understand that Samaria was a hated place. Although the road through Samaria was the shortest route to Galilee, devout Jews avoided it. They avoided it because there was a deep distrust and dislike between Jews and Samaritans. Why was that? When the southern kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians, they took almost everyone captive, exiling them to the Babylonian Empire – which we talked about last week with Ezekiel. All they left behind were the lowest classes of people, because they did not want "those type" of people in Babylonia. Those that were left behind intermarried with other people who slowly came into the region, and the Samaritans emerged as an ethnic and religious group. And because the Samaritans had a historical and ethnic connection to the people of Israel, their faith was a combination of law and ritual from the Law of Moses, and various superstitions from other religions because of who they married. Most Jews in Jesus’ time despised the Samaritans, even more than Gentiles. Why, because as they saw it, they were, religiously speaking and ethnically speaking, "half-breeds" who had an eclectic, mongrel in faith. They were looked down upon, hated, and avoided at all cost.

What we see here is that Jesus breaks through that thought and we see is that God encounters those that society has discarded (6-7). For this woman it is even worse than just being a Samaritan which was bad because as we said they are considered half breeds and hated. To understand why it is worse for her you have to first ask why would she be getting water at the noon hour when all the other women would be getting their water early in the day when it was cooler? It was because she was an outcast among the outcasts! She was a discarded person among a society of people who were considered outcasts. Who are those that you see as outcasts? Who are those that you treat as outcasts? Is that the right and godly way to be? Jesus was one who was all inclusive – he made contact with people and encountered people who we would certainly push to the side and push away. I believe it breaks the heart of God when we treat others as outcasts. When we realize we have done it – we must go and make things right.

That leads to this: Jesus encounters those we think are unlovely and that others do not want to encounter and Jesus does it at risk of defiling Himself (6-9). Think about this, for Jesus to have dealings with this woman was for Him to risk ritual defilement. The ritual impurity of the person was thought to pass to whatever he or she had contact with, like spiritual germs. In other words they thought Samaritans to be in a continual state of uncleanness and for Jesus to even be around her, was in the eyes of some of the religious leaders, making him unclean.  Jesus is willing to go wherever you are to get you!  Are you willing to reach out and defile yourself?

Do you believe in divine appointments?  Have you ever reached out to those that society has discarded?